Private Foundations

Private foundations make grants based on charitable endowments. The endowment funds come from one or a small handful of sources -- an individual, a family or a corporation. Because of their endowments, they are focused primarily on grantmaking and generally do not raise funds or seek public financial support the way public charities (like community foundations) must.

“Private foundation” is the umbrella term that includes corporate, independent, family, and operating foundations. As of 2011, there were 73,764 private foundations in the United States (Foundation Center, 2011).

In 2011, private foundations held more than $604 billion in assets and gave away more than $45 billion (Foundation Center, 2011).

Below is everything on our site for private foundations. You can use the filtering options on the right to narrow these results.

The Council's Board of Directors released this guidance memorandum in March 2010 and strongly recommends that when reviewing and approving foundation investment policies and procedures practices, all foundations—private and public-consider these best practices in foundation investment management.

The Council is aware that an individual healthcare worker, who has since tested positive for Ebola, recently travelled from the Cleveland airport. To date, there are no confirmed cases of Ebola in Ohio.

The Council is closely monitoring the information provided by the Cleveland Department of Health, the Ohio Department of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In an abundance of caution, the Council has reached out to local health officials and conference venues.

For more than 20 years, the Council has played a key role in working to reduce barriers to cross-border philanthropy. We are committed to working with grantmakers, the Federal government and multilateral institutions, think tanks, global philanthropic networks, and other partners to facilitate a favorable regulatory environment for foundations doing work overseas.